Would you like to see a battle between the hottest hatchbacks currently offered by Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen and BMW? Who am I kidding? Of course you do!

The UK's Autocar recently put three fantastic but radically different hatches to the test, and the comparison is something quite a bit of fun.

In one corner, we have the brand new Mercedes A45 AMG, which packs a beastly 355 horsepower and all wheel drive from its 2.0-liter turbo four. It looks cool, but it's expensive, stickering in at a whopping US $56,000. (We don't get that car, but we will get its svelte sedan version, the CLA45 AMG.) Reviewer Steve Sutcliffe says the price is worth it, and calls it "flippin' marvelous."

Despite a price that puts the brawny CLA 45 AMG at roughly the equivalent of two V6 Mustangs,…
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In another, you have the rear-wheel drive BMW M135i, which is not as attractive as the Benz but is cheaper and still has 315 horsepower. It keeps up, but not as well as you might think.

Finally, there's the brand-new Volkswagen GTI with the performance package and DSG gearbox. With just 227 horsepower and front wheel drive, it may not seem like a fair fight to pit it against these three — I wonder why they didn't use the outgoing Golf R instead — but it's far less expensive and it's still "a real peach" on its own, Steve says.

So which one comes out on top? Let's just say that some things are worth their big price tags.